Passenger vehicle retail sales in India increased by 14 percent year-on-year in March, said the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA), India’s top body of the automotive retail industry.
According to the latest data released by the FADA on Tuesday, two-wheelers, three-wheelers, passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles grew by 12 percent, 69 percent, 14 percent, and 10 percent, respectively, while tractors grew 4 percent.
Although the two-wheeler segment demonstrated growth over the same period last year, it remains significantly below pre-pandemic levels, indicating that rural India is still bearing the burden of high inflationary costs.
“The three-wheeler segment achieved record-high retail sales, surpassing the previous high figures of March 2020, which was a month when the industry made the transition from BS-4 to BS-6 (emission standards),” it said.
The domestic passenger vehicle registrations rose to 335,266 units last month, from 293,016 units in March 2022.
Likewise, total registrations across segments rose 13.89 percent year-on-year to 2,041,847 units in March 2023, compared to 1,792,802 vehicles in March 2022.
In the fiscal year 2023, the passenger vehicle registrations rose by 23 percent to 3,620,039 units, as against 2,942,273 units in 2021-22.
“The demand for higher-end variants helped sustain sales. However, the entry-level variant remains under pressure as customers in this category are still affected by high inflation,” the FADA said.
Two-wheelers retails rose by about 19 percent to 15,995,968 units in the fiscal year 2023 as compared to 13,494,214 units in 2021-22.
Commercial vehicle retails rose 33 percent, three-wheeler retails up 84 percent and tractor registrations saw an 8 percent rise year-on-year in the last fiscal year.
According to the FADA, total sales increased by about 21 percent to 22,150,222 units last fiscal year as compared to 18,327,326 units in 2021-22.